Christ Hospital opened its new visitor garage on Dec. 24. The new P1 garage is part of a larger, $265 million campus expansion project. It will be the primary parking location for patients and visitors to the hospital.

The P1 garage is located along Auburn Avenue. It is connected to both the Medical Office Building and the main hospital entrance through a skywalk over Mason Street, and can be accessed from Mason Street and Huntington Place. The facility has eight levels with 847 parking spaces for patients, families and visitors. There are separate entrances for visitors and physicians.

P1 was designed to fit with the historic character of Mount Auburn and the other buildings on The Christ Hospital campus. The facility is clad in brick, precast concrete and glass. One million pounds of Rebar and over 363,000 feet of post-tensioning steel were used to reinforce the concrete. In a news release, Christ Hospital said the basin in which P1 sits is big enough to hold three of Coney Island’s Sunlite Pools. At 200 feet wide and 401 feet long, holding more than three million gallons of water, Coney Island’s Sunlite Pool is the largest flat-surfaced, recirculating pool in the world.

Christ Hospital started work on the garage in May 2012 as part of its campus expansion, a huge project that includes the construction of The Christ Hospital Joint and Spine Center, a facility described by the hospital as “regionally unique,” dedicated solely to orthopaedic and spine care. In October, Christ Hospital held a topping off ceremony to celebrate the completion of the building’s structural steelwork. The new facility is expected to open in summer 2015. It will feature 60 private inpatient rooms, 12 operating rooms, physical and occupational therapy, pain management, imaging services, conference and educational facilities, and physician offices.